WEBINAR SERIES—Genetic and Hormonal Components of Sex Differences in Alzheimer’s Disease

September 11, 2024
11 a.m. EDT

Watch On-demand

Content Partner: Society for Women's Health Research

This presentation will highlight the state of the literature about sex differences in prevalence and incidence rates of dementia and the gaps that remain. Rachel Buckley, PhD, will touch upon the common issue that women are underdiagnosed with dementia because they perform much better than men on many neuropsychological tests. Buckley’s work has shown consistently, and across many independent cohorts, that women show higher levels of tauopathy in the brain than men. After demonstrating these sex differences in these clinical Alzheimer’s disease-related outcomes, she will turn to the question of whether they might be driven by sex steroid hormones or the X chromosome. The end of the program will explore why scientists care about sex differences, particularly from a clinical trials perspective.

Key learning objectives:

• The extent to which sex differences exist in Alzheimer’s disease risk.
• The role of sex steroid hormones and the X chromosome in moderating this risk.
• The importance of how sex disaggregates findings in observational research and in clinical trials.

Speaker

Rachel Buckley, PhD
Associate Professor, Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital

Rachel Buckley, PhD, is an associate professor of neurology at Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals. After completing her PhD in neuropsychology at the University of Melbourne, Australia, with the Australian Imaging Biomarker and Lifestyle Study of Aging, Buckley trained in positron emission tomography neuroimaging and cognitive decline under the mentorship of Reisa Sperling, MD, on the Harvard Aging Brain Study. Her research interests lie in sex differences in risk for Alzheimer’s disease, and optimizing women’s brain health in neurodegenerative disease with a specific focus on the role of menopause, sex hormones and the X chromosome to impact risk and resilience to Alzheimer’s disease. Buckley is the chair of the Sex and Gender Differences in Alzheimer’s disease Professional Interest Area for the Alzheimer’s Association. She is on the editorial boards for the journals Neurology and Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring.